Another sentenced in mortgage fraud

Wednesday

Aug 13, 2014 at 12:29 AMAug 13, 2014 at 12:29 AM

By The Examiner staff

A second former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy is going to federal prison for his role in an $11 million Eastern Jackson County mortgage fraud scheme. A jury found that he had bought two Blue Springs homes at inflated prices and had gotten a $100,000 kickback on each.

James Arthur Nash Jr., 44, of Corona, California, on Tuesday was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and ordered to pay $446,641 in restitution. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and four counts of wire fraud last December.

In July, a co-defendant, Arman Nshanian, 38, also of Corona and also a former Los Angeles County deputy, was sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison and ordered to pay $785,926 in restitution.

Nash and Nshanian were two of nine defendants in the case. Two Blue Springs real estate agents were sentenced in May for their roles in the scheme. Leann R. Turner, 44, of Blue Springs, was sentenced to three years in prison without parole and ordered to pay more than $4.9 million in restitution, while Carole L. Colson, 71, of Lake Worth, Florida, who formerly ran Carole Colson Real Estate in Blue Springs, was sentenced to five years of probation, which includes six months of house arrest and 120 hours of community service, and was ordered to pay nearly $2.29 million in restitution.

According to court records, the defendants participated in a mortgage fraud conspiracy from early 2005 to August 2006. They would buy and sell homes at inflated prices, get loans for those high prices and take kickbacks from the loans.

Lenders made more than $11 million in loans on 16 residential properties in Blue Springs, Independence, Oak Grove, Lee’s Summit, Liberty and Parkville. From that amount, buyers allegedly received more than $2 million from the loan proceeds in illegal kickbacks. The scheme also resulted in a financial loss of nearly $5 million to mortgage lenders.

Nash bought two homes on South Brittany in Blue Springs, one for $540,647, inflated by $140,747; and one for $520,047, inflated by $160,147. Court records say he got a $100,000 kickback on each. Two months later, he tried but failed to sell the homes in a similar scheme. The loans went into default and were foreclosed upon. An attempt to buy a third property fell though. Nash also took out a fraudulent home-improvement loan for a pool at his home in California.

Turner served as a real estate agent working for a series of real estate companies during the conspiracy. She served as the real estate agent in 15 of the 16 transactions and received commissions and some hidden payments and assets in exchange for listing the homes and selling them at inflated prices.

Turner and Colson listed the houses, sought buyers and sold them at inflated prices. Turner and Colson made misrepresentations and omissions of facts to mortgage lenders to obtain the loans. Home buyers then created false businesses that issued invoices that claimed they had provided work or services in exchange for loan funds, and received a $100,000 kickback for each purchase.